DrZoe Xirocostas

My research interests span a considerable breadth across the disciplines of ecology and evolutionary biology. However, the main themes of my research tend to focus on the effects of global change drivers (including urbanisation, biological invasion and climate change) on the survival, reproduction and adaptive capacity of plants (and sometimes animals - usually invertebrates!) into the future. I collaborate widely across fields and continents, having worked with researchers across the UK, USA, Spain, France, Estonia, Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland, Germany and more! I am a field ecologist at heart, having spent lots of time outdoors in all weather conditions, scaling mountains, traversing desert, and navigating forests to learn more about our natural world. If I'm not in the field performing experiments or recording observations, I'm likely running glasshouse experiments or sythesising available data (or helping my students to do this!). My reach is not confined only to academia, as I have formed and maintained partnerships/projects with external organisations such as local councils, state government entities and NGOs to co-design research in relation to understanding how trees can mitigate urban heating, assessing the impacts of invasive species and detecting invasive species using eDNA.